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Saturday, October 24, 2009

India - According to Google Maps

Google, known for localizing their search results, localizes their map images too! Compare the various representations of India in Google Maps

The version for India: http://maps.google.co.in



The Chinese version - http://ditu.google.cn
Notice how many places are now shown as part of China!



The US / International version: http://maps.google.com
See the dotted lines for disputed regions of Jammu and Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh!





Image Credits: Google Maps

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Water Water Everywhere...on the Moon!

The major space news this past week, and probably most significant in history of space exploration is the discovery of water on Moon!

The international cooperation between Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) led to this astounding discovery.

The NASA moon minerology mapper instrument onboard ISRO's Chndrayaan-1 moon probe, discovered large quantities of water and hydroxyl molecules on moon. There aren't lakes or puddles (yet) but molecules combined to dust on the lunar surface.


Why is this such a big deal?

Water is important for life (as we know it) to exist.

We already found water ice on places like Mars, why are we excited about Moon?

Moon was supposed to be dry, and after all these years of exploration, including various manned missions, it is hugely surprising that water molecules were not discovered before. This opens up a new set of questions....

  • Where did all these water come from? whats its origin?
  • Why haven't we been able to see it before?
  • What other parts of solar system, which we currently think as dry has water?
  • Is there liquid water on Moon?
  • When are we going to announce that we found life on Moon ? ( :)
These questions will be discussed and debated for years to come...

Saturday, September 12, 2009

"WayNotes" Augmented Reality App for Android!

WayNotes is my new experiment with "Augmented Reality".

Its is an app for Android mobile devices, using which users can create notes and post them to geographical locations. Using phone features such as GPS, Camera, Compass, when the user points the phone in the direction of the note, the note appears as a circle shape, in its location overlaid on top of live camera feed.

Also, users will be able to access place names from GeoNames.org database.

The app has been submitted for Android Developers Challenge 2

More info here:

WayNotes website: www.waynotes.com
Blog WayLog:  waylog.blogspot.com

Similage.com Image Search

 My image search engine "SegamiSearch" is now "Similage"!


With tons of new features outlined below...
  • Face Detection : search images containing faces 
  • Improved similarity search algorithm
  • Multiple similarity  search options: Similar colors, similar features
  • Sketch and Find: sketch shapes and discover new images! (the first of its kind!)
  • Search by prominent colors in an image
  • Gray-scale images: search only black and white images
  • Improved user interface
  • Larger image database
visit it at www.similage.com

I had submitted this research work for review in ACM multimedia 2009 Grand Challenge contest, Eventhough it was not selected for publication, I got some very good reviews!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Celebratng The 1234567890 Day

Feb 13th, 15:31 hours was celebrated as the 1234567890 day by Unix geeks worldwide.

Its the date-time in Unix epoch time format. Defined as the number of seconds elapsed since Jan 1, 1970. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time)

By Feb 13th, 15:31 hours 1234567890 seconds had elapsed since Jan 1, 1970!

Tip: To see the date in this format type in "date +%s" (without the quotes) in your Unix/Linux terminal